Cruel World

Last book review - honestly! (well for now...)

Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web, by Lynn H. Nicholas

Wow, what an interesting book. Paints Europe as a total mess of displaced and relocated people. Spanish children sent away to avoid Franco's revolution, French children moved to avoid the Nazi invasion, British children sent to the country to avoid the bombing, Jews moved everywhere, Poles pushed East, Latvians sent to Poland, Russians working in Germany... what a mess! I was expecting details of experiments and mass death, which the book did have, but not as in depth and detailed as 'Doctors from Hell'. This book is 558 pages long, and not surprisingly, I only got to about page 351. It was enough for me to see that not only Germany, but the whole of Europe was very confused, and full of all sorts of horrible things that children should never have to endure. It also left me wondering what life must have been like for those who survived, with such a confused identity and harsh life.

These books are really making me realise what a privileged world we now live in. It may not always seem that way, but when you read something like this, you feel that you should appreciate the life you've got, because generally it doesn't come close to the horror of the life that these people had.